Michael Maxxis's documentary Gail premieres at TIFF, profiling obsessive Our Lady Peace superfan

Michael Maxxis's second feature film, Gail, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10 as an unconventional music documentary following one woman's decades-long devotion to Our Lady Peace.

The film profiles Gail E. Lichtman, a New York subway worker from the Bronx who has spent more than two decades and countless dollars following the Canadian rock band, attending their shows 128 times. Maxxis, a Canadian filmmaker who splits his time between Edmonton and Long Beach, California, directed the documentary as the band prepared for their 30th-anniversary tour.

Maxxis began his career teaching himself filmmaking by reading camera manuals cover to cover, then filming concerts. He caught the attention of legendary music video director David Hogan, best known for work with Prince, Sheryl Crow and Bryan Adams, who offered Maxxis one piece of memorable advice: with every video you make, do one thing differently. Maxxis went on to direct music videos in the mid-aughts for Billy Talent, Alexisonfire, City and Colour, Our Lady Peace and Orville Peck.

Raine Maida, Our Lady Peace's frontman, came to Maxxis with the documentary idea after years of friendship. Maida described Gail E. Lichtman as a controversial figure among Our Lady Peace fans—she has rivalries with other devotees—and said she probably knows more about the band than anyone in the band does. When Maxxis, Maida, and Gail E. Lichtman first connected on a Zoom call, she cried twice and yelled at her neighbour within five minutes. "You can't take your eyes off of her," Maxxis recalled. "She's got so much fragility and vulnerability, mixed with a toughness and a confrontational attitude."

Gail E. Lichtman initially hesitated to participate, saying she had only three weeks to prepare for the tour. She was focused on practical tasks—getting her hair and nails done, having two teeth pulled, making doctor's appointments, doing laundry—details that Maxxis recognized as exactly the kind of material the documentary needed to capture. She reluctantly agreed, though she had concerns about the filmmaking process and initially set a long list of places where she didn't want to be filmed.

The production faced challenges from the start. Gail E. Lichtman had never been filmed before and felt pressure when cameras and microphones arrived. The small crew was working under time pressure with a limited budget. Despite these obstacles, Maxxis's scrappy production eventually accumulated an all-star crew and shaped itself into what he describes as an honest and hopeful portrait of one woman's lifelong quest to cross the barricade between fan and friend.